Marketing Department Consulting

AMLAW Firm, 25-Person Marketing Department

Situation/Need

As a result of a merger of two large firms, the new, combined marketing department was experiencing several challenges. While the CMO had identified many issues he wanted to address, he felt it was important to find out from his staff, located throughout the country, what they were experiencing as well. Fortunately, his team was populated with some talented people who were willing to give honest feedback.

In addition to the normal problems of integrating people, processes, and systems from firms with different cultures, the team faced the following challenges: poor communication, lack of teamwork or sense of camaraderie, low trust, and lack of accountability.

Approach

We began the assignment coaching the CMO to work more effectively with his new expanded team. As mentioned, he had already identified many things that needed to be changed, but he wanted deeper intelligence from those on the front line; so, we decided to conduct a survey to determine the team’s strengths and weakness, their communication challenges, and the issues that needed to be resolved.

Since communication challenges were at the top of everyone’s list we administered and debriefed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Talent Insights assessment (this assessment measures behavioral preferences and values).

Next, we convened an offsite retreat with the entire team. Our objectives for the retreat were to: